in retrospect

In this age of so many social media platforms, can you just pick one that you're on and ignore the rest? How important is it to "be everywhere"?

With the amount of social media channels out there, it seems impossible to be on all of them AND spare time to, you know, write. It may seem like you HAVE to be on every single social media channel in existence, but let’s be honest, no one has time for that.

If there’s a particular social media channel that you’re comfortable with, stick with that one. For some it’s Facebook, for others it’s Twitter, many would even prefer Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, or Snapchat. But what matters is how comfortable you are with social media and where your audience is. Because social media done poorly is worse than not having it at all.

Now if you don’t have a preference, then choose the social media channel(s) where you’d find your audience. Is your book more education-based? Then use the channel where you’d find teachers, librarians, and educators. Do you write for teens? Then use the one that teen readers use. Finding the right channel will of course require some research if you aren’t familiar with each one, but you wouldn’t want to invest your time building a platform only to realize that your primary audience isn’t there.

Another thing to note is that you can always crosspost your content across your social media channels. If you primarily use Instagram, you can adjust your settings to crosspost to Facebook, Twitter, and other channels at the same time. This feature allows you to be on more than one platform (wider audience reach) without having to individually update your channels (which can get pretty time consuming). It goes without saying, but crossposting is a HUGE time saver. And there are many other methods out there to help you cut down on social media time, which I’ll save for another post.

If you want to be on all social media channels, by all means do what you’d prefer! But is it absolutely necessary? Not at all.

Choose the channel(s) you’d prefer. Keep them updated. And remember, it’s better to have at least one platform that you use well (and regularly) than several platforms that are rarely ever updated.